China Citizen Pleads Guilty to Unauthorized Access of a Software Company with Intent to Defraud

The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of
California announced that Yan Ming Shan, 34, of Daqing, China,
pled guilty in federal court late yesterday to a one-count indictment charging him with gaining unauthorized access to the computers of a Silicon Valley
business to fraudulently obtain proprietary software programs and
source code.

The maximum statutory penalty for the violation of 18 U.S.C. §
1030(a)(4) is five years of imprisonment and a fine of $250,000,
plus restitution if appropriate. However, the actual sentence
will be dictated by the Federal Sentencing Guidelines, which take
into account a number of factors, and will be imposed in the
discretion of the Court. The sentencing of Mr. Shan is
scheduled before U.S. District Judge Jeremy Fogel in San Jose on
September 7, 2004, at 2:30 p.m.

According to the criminal complaint and other court
filings, Mr. Shan worked for 3DGeo Development, Inc., a Mountain
View company that develops software used to survey land for sources
of natural gas and oil from April to September 2002. 3DGeo
employed Mr. Shan under an agreement with one of its customers,
PetroChina, a Chinese company with a division named DaQing Oil,
which arranged for its employee Mr. Shan to travel to California for
training on 3DGEO's software. In pleading guilty to the
indictment, Mr. Shan admitted that he gained unauthorized access to
3DGeo's computer system with an intent to defraud the company.

FBI agents arrested Mr. Shan in September 2002, as he attempted
to board a flight to China. He has been held in custody as a
flight risk pending trial since that time, and remains in custody
pending his sentencing.

The prosecution is the result of an investigation by agents of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and was overseen by the
Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Unit of the United
States Attorney's Office. Kyle F. Waldinger is the Assistant
U.S. Attorney who prosecuted the case.

A copy of this press release may be found on the U.S. Attorney's
Office's website at
www.usdoj.gov/usao/can Related court
documents and information may be found on the District Court website
at
www.cand.uscourts.govor on
http://pacer.cand.uscourts.gov

All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney's Office should be
directed to Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher P. Sonderby, Chief
of the CHIP Unit, at (415) 308-7993, or Matthew J. Jacobs at (415)
436-7181.